Sallie McGavock Lindsley – Nashville Historical Newsletter

by Kathy B. Lauder.

Sarah Malvina Bass McGavock, usually called Sallie, was born July 17, 1830, in Nashville, Tennessee.¹ Her father was Jacob McGavock (1790-1878), a county, circuit, and U.S. circuit court clerk for fifty years.² Jacob had served as Andrew Jackson’s aide during the Creek War,³ and the two men remained close friends throughout their lives.⁴ Sallie’s mother, Louisa Grundy McGavock, was the daughter of noted jurist Felix Grundy,⁵ Chief Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court, U. S. Representative and Senator from Tennessee, and U. S. Attorney General under President Martin Van Buren.⁶

On February 9, 1857, Sallie married Dr. John Berrien Lindsley (1822-1897),⁷ one of Nashville’s most eligible bachelors. Lindsley’s journal reports, “At 4 & 10 minutes P.M. was married by the Rev. J. T. Edgar, D.D. to Miss Sallie McGavock . . . only the immediate family and a very few friends present. All very happy.”⁸

Sallie Lindsley gave birth to six children: Louise Grundy Lindsley (1858-1944); Jacob McGavock Lindsley (1860-1925), nicknamed “J. Mac,” who married Kittie Kline; Mary McGavock Lindsley (b 1861), wife of R. C. Kent; Margaret Elizabeth Lawrence Lindsley (1863-1936), who married Percy Warner, and whose descendants bore the names Frazer, White, Mallison, and Lea; Anne “Annie” Dickinson Lindsley (1864-1958), who married Dr. Carl Warner; and Randal McGavock Lindsley (1870-1871),⁹ named for Sallie’s brother, a former Nashville mayor (1824-1825), who had died in the Civil War.

The Lindsley family remained in Nashville during the War, moving to Sallie’s parents’ home after Union troops seized the Lindsleys’ property during the Battle of Nashville.¹⁰ Sallie later became active in various charities of the First Presbyterian Church. She was a charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (founded in1894) and served as the group’s first corresponding secretary.¹¹ The work closest to Sallie Lindsley’s heart, however, was the creation of the Ladies’ Hermitage Association (LHA), organized to protect and preserve Andrew Jackson’s home, a state property scheduled to become a rest home for aged and needy Confederate soldiers.¹² When attorney A. S. Colyar determined that only unmarried women (femmes soles) were eligible to sign the LHA charter of incorporation,¹³ the committee members selected five unmarried women, including Sallie’s daughter, Louise Grundy Lindsley,¹⁴ to sign the document. Meanwhile, John Berrien Lindsley, then Executive Secretary of the State Board of Public Health, was attempting unsuccessfully to craft a compromise between the Confederate organization and the LHA. At his urging, Sallie met with Representative John H. Savage, a former Confederate officer and the chief opponent of the amendment that would cede the women’s group 25 acres that included the house, family graveyard, and tomb.¹⁵ Sallie persuaded Savage to change his vote, the amendment passed, and the Association opened the property to the public in July 1889.¹⁶The group’s first major undertaking, restoring Jackson’s original log home, “First Hermitage,” was Tennessee’s first historic preservation project. ¹⁷

*“First Hermitage,” Hermitage, Davidson County, Tennessee*

Sallie Lindsley was elected Second Vice Regent of the Ladies’ Hermitage Association (1891-1899), then served as Regent¹⁸ until her death by heart failure on July 5, 1903.¹⁹ (2014)

SOURCES:

¹ Her birth and death dates are inscribed on her tombstone in Mt. Olivet Cemetery.

² Gray, Robert. The McGavock Family: A Genealogical History of James McGavock and His Descendants from 1760 to 1903. Richmond, VA: William Ellis Jones, Printer, 1903, 21.³ Gray, Robert, 20-21.

⁴ Gray, Robert, 14.

⁵ “Mrs. Lindsley Dead. Passes Away Quietly after Brief Illness.” The Nashville American, July 6, 1903, page 4.

⁶ “Felix Grundy.” United States Congress. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-2005. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 2005.

⁷ Tennessee State Marriages, 1780-2002. Nashville: Tennessee State Library and Archives.

⁸ Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 5, October 6, 1856 – January 1, 1866. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953, Box 1, Folder 23. Tennessee State Library and Archives. February 9, 1857.

⁹ Lindly, John M. The History of the Lindley-Lindsley-Linsley Families in America, 1639-1924, Vol. II. Winfield, Iowa: Self-published, 1924, 19.

¹⁰ Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 5, December 1-24, 1864.

¹¹ Bucy, Carole Stanford. “Quiet Revolutionaries: The Grundy Women and the Beginnings of Women’s Volunteer Associations in Tennessee,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Vol.LIV, No. 1, Spring 1995, 45.

¹²Bucy, Carole Stanford. “Ladies’ Hermitage Association.” Tennessee Encyclopedia Online. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002-2014.

¹³ Dorris, Mary C. Currey. Preservation of the Hermitage, 1889-1915: Annals, History, and Stories. Smith & Lamar, 1915, 35.

¹⁴ Bucy, Carole Stanford. “Quiet Revolutionaries,” 46.

¹⁵ Bucy, Carole Stanford. “Quiet Revolutionaries,” 46.

¹⁶ The Hermitage, Home of President Andrew Jackson website. Accessed 6-23-2014. http://www.thehermitage.com/mansion-grounds/mansion/hermitage

¹⁷ The Hermitage, Home of President Andrew Jackson website. Accessed 6-23-2014.

¹⁸ Dorris, Mary C. Currey. Preservation of the Hermitage, 1889-1915, 219-220.

¹⁹ Tennessee City Death Records, Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Memphis, 1848-1907. Nashville: Tennessee State Library and Archives.

by Kathy B. Lauder.

Born October 24, 1822, John Berrien Lindsley came to Nashville in 1824, when his father, Philip, became president of the University of Nashville. Young Lindsley was educated at home by his parents and a neighbor, Septima Sexta Rutledge.¹At 14 he entered the University of Nashville, earning a B.A. at 17 and an M.A. two years later.² In 1842 he entered the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, receiving his M.D. in March 1843.³Here Lindsley began a lifelong friendship with adventurer William Walker.⁴

Lindsley’s next pursuit was theology: in December 1843 the Nashville Presbytery accepted him as a candidate for the ministry.⁵ He was licensed to preach in April 1845,⁶ shortly before attending to Andrew Jackson at his deathbed.⁷ Lindsley ministered to churches at the Hermitage and in Smyrna and, beginning in 1847, preached to slaves and the poor.⁸ An 1849 cholera epidemic⁹ kindled his interest in public health.

When Philip Lindsley left the University of Nashville in 1850, his son John Berrien became Chancellor. He proposed to rescue the faltering university by merging with the Western Military Institute of Georgetown, Kentucky,¹⁰ and by establishing the long-awaited medical school. Though apprehensive, Board members permitted the merger. Lindsley spearheaded the development of the medical school in 1851, became its first dean, and taught there until 1873.¹¹ [Note: the following year the University of Nashville Medical School was incorporated into Vanderbilt University, which had been founded in 1873 by virtue of a grant from Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. From that point on, it would be known as the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.]

In 1857 Lindsley married Felix Grundy’s granddaughter Sarah “Sallie” McGavock, with whom he had six children. He served on the Nashville Board of Education and was secretary of the State Board of Education, administering the Peabody Education Fund and overseeing the transition of the University of Nashville into Peabody College.¹² Having received a Doctorate of Sacred Theology from Princeton (1858), he lectured in the Cumberland University Theological Department in Lebanon.¹³

Following the capture of Fort Donelson (February 1862), Lindsley became post surgeon of Nashville hospitals. His valiant efforts to protect university property during federal occupation saved the library, laboratory equipment, and the valuable Troost mineral collection.¹⁴

After the war, Lindsley served on the Nashville Board of Education and was superintendent of Nashville public schools. He helped establish Montgomery Bell Academy (1867) and the Tennessee College of Pharmacy (1870),¹⁵ and in 1875 presided over the State Teachers Association. Having promoted the passage of an 1877 law establishing the State Board of Health, he served as its first executive secretary.¹⁶ As Nashville Public Health Officer from 1876-1880, he supervised all health efforts in Tennessee during the 1878 yellow fever epidemic.¹⁷ He taught Sanitary Science and Preventative Medicine at the University of Tennessee from 1880-1897.¹⁸

Dr. John Berrien Lindsley in later life.

Distressed by wartime divisions within the Presbyterian Church, Lindsley became a minister in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1874.¹⁹ He authored History of the Law School of Cumberland University at Lebanon, Confederate Military Annals of Tennessee, and many works on medicine and public health. He was an early member of the Tennessee Historical Society and a fellow of the American Academy of Medicine.²⁰ His many talents led Alfred Leland Crabb to call him the “Benjamin Franklin of Nashville.”²¹

John Berrien Lindsley died December 7, 1897, in Nashville. He is buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery. (2014)

SOURCES:

¹ Windrow, John Edwin. John Berrien Lindsley, Educator, Physician, Social Philosopher. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1938, 8.

² Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 4, 1849-1856. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953, Box 1, Folder 21. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

³ Windrow, 11.

⁴ Lindsley, John Berrien. Letter to Adrian Van Sinderen Lindsley, April 8, 1843. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953. Oversize folder (49). Tennessee State Library and Archives.

⁵ Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 4, 1849-1856.

⁶ Windrow, 12.

⁷ Lindsley, Philip. Journal. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953, Box 2, Folder 33. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

⁸ Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 4, 1849-1856.

⁹ Pyle, G. F. “The Diffusion of Cholera in the United States in the Nineteenth Century,” Wiley Online Library, accessed 1-4-2014. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1538-4632.1969.tb00605.x/pdf

¹⁰ Conkin, Paul K. Peabody College: From a Frontier Academy to the Frontiers of Teaching and Learning. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2002, 83.

¹¹ John Berrien Lindsley Papers, Collection No. 41. Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The Annette & Irwin Eskind Biomedical Library, Special Collections: Accessed 1-5-2014. http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/diglib/sc_diglib/biopages/jlindsley.html

¹² State Board of Education Records, 1815-1958. Record Group 91, Volume 55, 1875-1885. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

¹³ John Berrien Lindsley Papers, Vanderbilt University.

¹⁴ Crabb, Alfred Leland. The Historical Background of Peabody College. Nashville: George Peabody College for Teachers, 1941, 20-21.

¹⁵ John Berrien Lindsley Papers, Vanderbilt University.

¹⁶ Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 5, October 6, 1856 – January 1, 1866. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953, Box 1, Folder 23. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

¹⁷ Windrow, 140-141.

¹⁸ Windrow, 159-160.

¹⁹ DeWitt, Rev. M. B. Letter, March 11, 1898, quoted in Windrow, 13-14.

²⁰ John Berrien Lindsley Papers, Vanderbilt University.

²¹ Crabb, Alfred Leland. Nashville: Personality of a City. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960, 95.

Tag: Sallie McGavock Lindsley

Sarah “Sallie” McGavock Lindsley, 1830-1903

John Berrien Lindsley, 1822-1897